Removing Wax from Glass Candle Jars

If you spend enough time on Pinterest, then I know you’ve seen the pin about cleaning out an old candle and re-purposing it. I’m not crazy. If the candle came in a janky jar, I’ll toss it into the recycling. But every once and a while I buy a schmancy candle and the jar is a cool piece in its own right. I totally had the perfect candle and declared it was time for some Pinterest Experimenting! I used this pin for removing candle wax from their jars.

The original poster, Yellow Brick Home, recommends pouring boiling water into the candle container and letting it cool overnight. I have had some glass shattering problems in my past from temperature differential accidents so I made sure that my candle jar glass was warm/room temperature before pouring in the hot water- up to almost top.

The candle then began to breakdown into its waxy and fatty components, like a lava lamp. The next part of the directions should be: find something else to do… because you now have to wait for it to cool… which can take several hours. As previously mentioned, don’t put the hot glass into the freezer or fridge to hasten the cooling… when glass changes temperature quickly, it shatters. You can never be too pushy with glass safety, folks.

Once the wax and water separation has cooled completely, just push one edge of the floating top wax down and remove the flipped wax top.

Once you’ve tossed the wax top, and dumped the water (being careful not to let any wax globs go down your drain) you are left with some sludgy remainder of candle gunk. Cleaning it out is easy- scrub two tablespoons (more-or-less) of baking soda inside the glass absorbing the wax and removing anything else that remains. Dump used baking soda in trash and rinse jar! You are done, my friend! Congrats!

Leigh & Coralie

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